Tuesday, March 27, 2012

may the odds be ever in your favor...

so, i'm not only a twilight nerd, but i also love the hunger games. i'm pretty happy to say that i was a fan of both waaaaay before they became a big deal. soooo ahead of the nerd curve. i read the hunger games a year or so ago and was seriously telling every person on the planet that they needed to read it. i'm not crediting the success solely to my persuasiveness, but let's face it... i am that awesome. well, i somehow ended up at the midnight premiere, like you do, with literally the smartest person i know, or maybe 2nd smartest... tricia is really smart too... hmmm... any who, bree from ginger, snapped. she pretty much lights up my life. we waited in the cold behind possibly the most giant nerd ever who was reading the book to his friends while we stood in line. he was so excited!!!! he will never know the love of woman...

anyways, the movie. once the movie finally started, i couldn't complain much... now that i've thought about it, i have plenty to complain about. lucky you. first, the story. if you haven't heard of the hunger games, i suggest you get your ass out from underneath that rock you've been under, but the gist of the story is that in a post-apocalyptic north america, the 12 remaining "districts" are reminded of the governments power over them by hold the annual hunger games, where 1 boy and 1 girl ages 12-18 are chosen from each district to fight to the death on live television. sick, right!? yeah, it's awesome. the heroine is katniss everdeen, she is a strong willed, self-sufficient young thing from district 12. she is innocent, but equally strong willed. she is definitely a survivor. when her dear sweet 12 year old sister prim's name is chosen for the games, she volunteers to take her place. that's what all the fuss is about. it's awesome. and like all good young adult novels there is a love story. does she love her best friend gale or is she falling for her fellow tribute peeta!?!? oh dear. will we ever know!? ;)

the movie itself is very well done. well acted. well filmed. well written. well edited... you get it, it's a very solid movie. the problem lies with a common book-to-film issue, timing. everything is, of course, rushed and feels as if it's moving at lightening speed to fit every juicy tidbit in. but alas, i find myself confused as to how they can justify adding in nearly 15 minutes of seneca crane(wes bentley) "the game maker" while cutting out some of the most important parts of the the peeta-katniss love story... color me confused. was it simply to lead in to the next film!?! since when do we make incomplete movies just because we know a freaking sequel will be made...

casting. i wasn't happy with it. all of the side characters were perfect... lenny kravitz, elizabeth banks, stanley tucci, and woody harrelson were fantastic... although, i thought the character of haymitch(woody harrelson) was written very poorly, he was much more of a softy than in the book, didn't work for me. while peeta(josh hutcherson) grew on me throughout the film, katniss(jennifer lawerence) never really got me to believe she was the same character from the book... i feel like she played the role far too sure of herself, she didn't have any of the innocent confusion about love and life that made katniss so endearing. the character is acted in a way that doesn't further any possibilities of the love triangle... i partially blame the writers for this. i will say that she is a phenomenal actress so she was fantastic in that respect, it was just a different character to me... even her look seems off... i had troian bellisario of pretty little liars in mind for the role, tall and thin, but still looks like she could be believable kicking ass. plus, she has the perfect demeanor she can be strong and powerful, but still has this sweet innocence about her. no one asked me though...

4 comments:

I am one of those people semi under a rock. I've had the Hunger Game series on my book list for over a year. My bff read the series as part of her book club a year ago, and insisted I read it. I wish I had listened.

I'm thinking about just seeing the movie before reading the book. What do you think? Do you think someone who hasn't read the book will be able to follow along?

the movie is so well made, that i definitely think you will be able to enjoy it without reading the books... actually, you might enjoy it more since you have nothing to compare it too. like i said, it really is well made. if you see it, let me know what you think :)

you summed this up so damn well! i pretty much agree with you on almost everything. the movie was way too rushed. there should have been way more in depth details (like the mockingjay pin and the avox characters) and less seneca. and it definitely should have been more violent in the arena. but yes, i still enjoyed the movie, but not nearly as much as the book. :)

I don't know how I missed this! (thanks for the compliment, btw) I *just* hopped on the hunger games bandwagon, having finished reading the first two books recently and am really liking them. We saw the movie this weekend. Overall, it was a fun movie that even Joe enjoyed. Since I saw the movie ads well before reading the books, I had always associated Jennifer Lawrence with Katniss, so she didn't bother me in the role. Yeah, Woody Harrelson's Haymitch is a lot less gruff than he came across in the book. I actually didn't like Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. In the book he seems like a gay man to me. Lenny Kravitz screams "I have sex with women". I almost wish I had seen the movie before reading the book to see how important the details are to the story. It's always interesting to see how a complete a story the movie is without knowing the details from the book.

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